


watcher in the wild

by kalypsobean



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:27:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24411307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Relationships: Aloy/Sylens (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	watcher in the wild

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bioluminesce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioluminesce/gifts).



There's nothing for it but rest. The path among the mountains is familiar to her now; free of machines, she can pass through it without following the guides. She doesn't make it far. It's not the darkness, shadows pierced only by pale light and her Focus; it's not even that the air is thin and cold, like she can't breathe enough even when her lungs are full.

She tries to bend her leg and can't.

The first wrong turn, then. The last time she was here there were sacks, kits, food. It wouldn't matter which, she just had to be far enough in that her scent would fade, the blood she leaves in her wake dry, old but to the most keen of eyes, the most discerning of noses. Where the signal - she doesn't know why, but the important thing is it does - where the signal from her Focus, the thing that connects her with the world around her more than anything, can't be found; where the rock means the machines can't find her unless she gives herself away. 

The sound echoes in a way she hasn't heard before, foreign and deeply familiar, like calling out and hearing her own voice come back a thousand times, overlapping and ebbing like a waterfall from the sky. But it's not her voice she hears; it's a crack, sharp and sudden, followed by a shrill sound that belongs to no creature she's ever hunted.

She gets to the dead end and isn't sure how; she doesn't know if she doesn't remember or it didn't register, or if her brain is overwhelmed by the sudden, cooling, _relief_ of sinking down to the ground and no longer having to run. The rough cloth and dead grass scrape along the exposed skin where her armor is rent, and she knows it should be painful but can't find it in her to care.

The sun is setting and she can barely see it; she knows it from the way she's still in shadow and can see the first stars through a gap in the stone above her. The light is red, as red as her trail and the makeshift bandage she'd torn; stripped from the shirt of a dead bandit the machines had left when they'd sensed her, taken before the Frostclaw had come, surrounded by purple-tinted Scorchers. 

There's no food; the Shaman's Path must still be too dangerous for the Banuk to reach, or perhaps they hadn't yet thought of the next generation, still grieving their losses and not yet freed of their scourge. She should have taken the satchel, she thinks; hidden and waited, or left the wound uncovered.

She tries to move, and it happens again, but now the sound echoes up and out; she imagines the Watchers searching her out.

"Aloy? Aloy!" They sound desperate, the Watchers, as their red eyes look down from the sunset.

~~~

She wakes up warm. Whether she wakes because she's warm, or she wakes because she's rested, she doesn't know. Her satchel and pouches are nearby, in her sight if not her reach, and her weapons rest neatly against the wall of rock, also out of reach. 

She also can't move; so, not rested then, just warm.

"I'd appreciate you not getting yourself killed," Sylens says, and his voice sounds so real, as if it's coming from outside her head instead of through the Focus.  
"What?" she says, or tries to, but when she opens her mouth it's dry and the word doesn't come out.

And then there's water, not scooped from a lake and filmy with oil and dirt, but clean and clear, from a flask. It's not icy, but still cool; she feels refreshed, almost as if a sense of connectedness spreads through her as she drinks, as if the water runs through her veins and wakes her up, but then the pain.

She touches her leg; it's bandaged, this time neatly, and beneath it there's something...

"You'll need time to heal," she hears Sylens say. It's strange; she's still tired, and yet things are becoming clearer - a flash of deep blue, of brown skin and ragged black gloves; shimmering blue that pulses even when her eyes close, as if a light that couldn't be dimmed or a memory that wouldn't let her go. Her hand touches her ear; the Focus is still there, and then she can feel it; the gentle pressure on her temple, the fact that she's being held, that someone is there. 

For a moment she's angry, but something in the way she tenses sets him off; it sparks another jolt in her, the pain flowing back in as if it was just waiting for her to relax, to do something.

"Don't strain yourself, Aloy," he says, and this time she knows it's not through the Focus. She feels the air from his words on her neck, where the scar there is still sensitive enough for it to make her shiver. She has so many questions, and her throat is still so dry and when she tries it doesn't quite work out somehow. All she can do is sit, with Sylens helping her, which is not exactly ideal, although maybe - just maybe - this time his guard will be down, and if she can ask the right questions, he'll say something she can actually use. First, though; she has to drink. 

The first time she reaches for the cup she misses; instead she clasps his arm and instantly pulls back, the feel of machine and skin under her hand too foreign to feel right, as if it was a secret she wasn't meant to know. He holds the cup steady until she blinks enough that her hand feels like it's where she thinks it is, and she can take it.

"You should rest. It's safe here, for now," he says, and then he's gone, all at once; she didn't even notice the warmth at her back and around her waist, and now it's cold, and she remembers she had so much to ask.

"Damn you," she manages to whisper, and maybe he laughs, or maybe that's part of her dream; images of skin broken by stripes of blue, stretched over and under and wrapping around her and then a world full of ruins that reach the sky.

~~~

She wakes up to find dimming embers, the sun peeking again through the rock. She checks her leg again; her armor's been woven closed with dead-looking blue cables just as she would have if she'd done it, and she has to push it aside to see. It looks so small, for what it felt like: a jagged line, packed with red petals and already closing at the edges, the new skin red and raw. Her boot is tight beneath it, but she can push herself up and it takes her weight. It's manageable, for now; she can get to a settlement, if she avoids machines. 

Except she's at the top of a mountain.

"You could have at least waited to help me down," she mutters.

"Aren't you meant to be gaining Aratak's trust?" Sylens' voice is in her Focus, slightly distant and thin. He's right, of course, but he doesn't say anything else, and she's preoccupied; checking her weapons, finding her pouches filled.

"Thank you," she says. 

She knows enough not to expect him to reply to that.


End file.
